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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works

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Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,

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Speaker 1: and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, there's Cherry over there.

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Speaker 1: And this is Stuff you Should Know, the podcast about

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Speaker 1: ping pong. I'm excited about this one. I'm glad. I

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Speaker 1: love ping pong. Are you any good? I don't think

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Speaker 1: we've ever played, have we? I don't think we have. Crazy.

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Speaker 1: That was that one time we were at that ping

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Speaker 1: pong bar and we just stared at each other for

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Speaker 1: an hour, but we never played. I remember that as

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Speaker 1: being air hockey. I remember the staring. Uh. Yeah, dude,

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Speaker 1: I love ping pong. I'm pretty good for you know,

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Speaker 1: just a recreational pong er. Uh. And and I finally

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Speaker 1: got a table. I'll get an outdoor table. Oh nice,

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Speaker 1: and an outdoor table, fancy? I love it. Yeah, that's great.

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Speaker 1: I don't have room inside. Well yeah, if you have

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Speaker 1: an outdoor table, it doesn't matter. Yeah. I got one

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Speaker 1: under the deck. Very nice, and it's just the best.

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Speaker 1: I'd love. I have had many times in my life

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Speaker 1: where and now it's just kind of when I can

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Speaker 1: get someone over or family, and I have a window.

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Speaker 1: But um, at various points in my life, I have

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Speaker 1: played a lot of ping pong, including when I lived

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Speaker 1: in l A my buddy John Pindell, chef John, you

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Speaker 1: know John. Um, he was I think living in a

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Speaker 1: place that had an outdoor table. And this was outdoor

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Speaker 1: in Los Angeles, so it's kind of great. It's just

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Speaker 1: out there in the backyard. Um. And then my brother

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Speaker 1: and I have had epic, legendary ping pong battles at

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Speaker 1: his house. Oh yeah, fund basement, like like matches, like

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Speaker 1: a single game that went on forever kind of thing.

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Speaker 1: Just I mean, not that, but like two out of three,

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Speaker 1: Like every time family is over there, at one point

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Speaker 1: we will disappear and everyone's like word Scott and Chuck o,

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Speaker 1: and we're down there and at it. That's awesome. It's

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Speaker 1: just so much fun. I love ping pong. I love

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Speaker 1: ping pong too. But my eyes are kind of open.

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Speaker 1: I realized I'm not quite as much the ping pong

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Speaker 1: officionado as I once thought I was. Yeah, between you

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Speaker 1: and this article, I realized I'm a total schlub when

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Speaker 1: it comes to ping pong. Yeah, I'm not bad. O good. Um,

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Speaker 1: So we're talking ping pong today and chuckle, you can

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Speaker 1: just phone this one in. I had to do a

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Speaker 1: lot of extensive shoe leather research on this one. Um.

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Speaker 1: But the the idea of ping pong when you think

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Speaker 1: of it, especially in this the twenty one century, most

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Speaker 1: people think of um, China when they think of ping pong,

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Speaker 1: especially here in the US, but really worldwide, because China

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Speaker 1: is nuts for ping pong, and there are plenty of

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Speaker 1: other countries too that love ping pong. Don't get me wrong.

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Speaker 1: Sweden is known as one of the major homes of

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Speaker 1: ping pong. The Japanese love ping pong. It's basically almost

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Speaker 1: every country except a Erica really has a thing for

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Speaker 1: ping pong. Here it's just you know, fun recreational stuff.

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Speaker 1: In other countries it has taken very very seriously, and

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Speaker 1: there are pockets that take it seriously here too. There's

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Speaker 1: the US Table Tennis Association, which has been around since

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Speaker 1: the thirties. But I think what I mean, as far

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Speaker 1: as the public goes thinking about table tennis players, we

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Speaker 1: don't exactly like put them hoist them on our shoulders

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Speaker 1: and carry them around the room after a match like that,

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Speaker 1: Like might what might happen to them? In other countries.

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Speaker 1: That's a very good point. But but it's it's sort

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Speaker 1: of more of a recreational Like you said, there are

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Speaker 1: some competitive players, to be sure, and organizations, but it's

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Speaker 1: a it's a sport you can play while you're drinking

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Speaker 1: a beer. You know. Sure, now you don't want to

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Speaker 1: do that if you are actually competitive pro table tennis player.

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Speaker 1: But I say all that chuck, because, um, while we

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Speaker 1: think of China's like the home of table tennis, it

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Speaker 1: actually is a British um invention. Did you know that

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Speaker 1: I did? Well, of course you did your table tennis pro. No,

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Speaker 1: I mean I knew that just because it was a

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Speaker 1: variation of tennis, which the Brits also gave us. Um,

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Speaker 1: it is a racket sport, which, um, you can include

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Speaker 1: things like bad mitten and uh, smosh ball and smash ball.

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Speaker 1: What are those things they played down at ben As Beach.

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Speaker 1: What is that called pickle ball? Is that what it is?

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Speaker 1: It's basically like a miniature tennis court. I think it's

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Speaker 1: called smash ball. Okay, I don't know. People are yelling

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Speaker 1: at in their car right now at me. I mean

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Speaker 1: I've heard I think you're talking about pickleball. Is it pickleball?

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Speaker 1: It's just sort of like a shrunken down tennis court. Um,

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Speaker 1: But obviously they're playing it looks like tennis with oversized

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Speaker 1: ping pong paddles, right exactly, Okay, yeah, that's pickleball, all right.

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Speaker 1: It might be called smash ball too, you know, there's

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Speaker 1: a regional difference in the grinder hero that kind of thing.

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Speaker 1: I think pickle I think smashball is something else entirely.

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Speaker 1: Are you thinking of smash mouth? God? That again, um,

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Speaker 1: reference to our lives show that we just did. Okay,

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Speaker 1: But what I was saying was it is a known

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Speaker 1: as a racket sport or a racket game wherein you

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Speaker 1: have a racket, you hit something over a net to

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Speaker 1: another human or maybe a robot even uh as we'll

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Speaker 1: get to. But uh, and there's a there's a court,

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Speaker 1: there are boundaries of some kind that you need to

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Speaker 1: hit it in. It's not just a crazy fee for

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Speaker 1: all right exactly. You can't just like win a point

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Speaker 1: by crushing it over your opponent's head. That would be fun.

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Speaker 1: It takes skill and finesse, and it even takes more

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Speaker 1: skill in finesse than like tennis does. Like lawn tennis

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Speaker 1: because lawn tennis well so, so there's a difference. There's

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Speaker 1: royal tennis, which is played like I'm trying to remember

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Speaker 1: what movie it appeared in. Um, maybe it was even

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Speaker 1: down to Nabby, I'm not sure, but whether you play

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Speaker 1: it indoors, it's like tennis indoors and there's like the

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Speaker 1: ball is hard and wrapped in cloth and squash. No. No,

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Speaker 1: there's royal tennis, and then um there's lawn tennis or

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Speaker 1: modern tennis is what it's called. And ping pong is

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Speaker 1: a variation on modern tennis, but it takes more finesse

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Speaker 1: because yes, you can smash the ball and that is

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Speaker 1: a way to go aggressive attacks style um playing. But

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Speaker 1: there's also a really good way to play too, which

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Speaker 1: is is strictly defensive and it's all finesse and spin

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Speaker 1: and we'll we'll see like there's a lot of thought

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Speaker 1: that goes into it, which is why if you notice,

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Speaker 1: if you start to look around at who plays table tennis,

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Speaker 1: you'll find that there are table tennis um tables and

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Speaker 1: in places where they're very smart people like m I.

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Speaker 1: T has a table tennis club, and CERN has a

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Speaker 1: table tennis club and one of their one of their cafeterias.

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Speaker 1: Like smart people like this because there's a lot of

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Speaker 1: physics involved into it, UM and there's not a lot

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Speaker 1: of running around either. Yeah, you don't see him. Uh,

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Speaker 1: you don't see dumb dumps because they're just like I

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Speaker 1: don't get it, yeah, like smash ball paddle. But we

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Speaker 1: do know that the although we don't know like the

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Speaker 1: the inventor. There's not one person that is credited with

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Speaker 1: its invention um. But the story goes that British soldiers

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Speaker 1: in South Africa or India, we're board and you know,

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Speaker 1: the weather wasn't so great and they were probably drinking,

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Speaker 1: and so they came up with this little, smaller version

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Speaker 1: of tennis played on a table um, as the story goes,

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Speaker 1: using cigar box lids, using sabar o lids and a

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Speaker 1: whittled down champagne cork to make it round. Which you

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Speaker 1: know that that wouldn't be a bad little first first

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Speaker 1: go I saw that exact same story was attributed to

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Speaker 1: some wealthy UM British aristocrats who were bored one day.

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Speaker 1: That sounds about right, but there seems to be unanimous

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Speaker 1: UM agreement that it was on a table with some

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Speaker 1: cigar box lids and a cork whittled down. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: so you know, it grow from there, it grow it growed.

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Speaker 1: Excuse me, uh, I think he's still got another try left.

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Speaker 1: It growed from there into wait wait, wait you mean

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Speaker 1: grow right? You're kidding, right, okay, okay, that's the first

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Speaker 1: time I knew you were kidding. The second time I

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Speaker 1: was like, chuck, looking straight man, Um, you really are

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Speaker 1: It grew from there and the names changed various times.

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Speaker 1: The first UM manufactured, actually put out and sell ping

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Speaker 1: pong tables was the Jacques Games Company and they called

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Speaker 1: it Gossama. Um. There was another trademarked name with whaff,

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Speaker 1: which was the Slayinger Company's h name, and the world

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Speaker 1: was like, you got another try there. That was one

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Speaker 1: called flim Flam. I don't know if that was trademarked

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Speaker 1: from a company or if that was just a nickname.

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Speaker 1: And all these with with the exception of Gossama, they

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Speaker 1: were meant to to um emulate the sound the ball

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Speaker 1: made going back and forth. Right, really yeah, yeah, whiff

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Speaker 1: whaff It didn't sound like whiff waff at all. What

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Speaker 1: about flip flam? Nope, maybe the sound of the paddle.

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Speaker 1: It sounds like a whiff win, a whaff, but not

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Speaker 1: the ball. Okay, fine, but gossima meant it was like

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Speaker 1: after gossamer, which was kind of fine and thin and

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Speaker 1: um elegant, which was like the ball play. It was

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Speaker 1: what that was describing. They were all terrible, terrible names.

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Speaker 1: I can't believe we just said that. So. Uh. They

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Speaker 1: did use cork at first, but they didn't bounce great.

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Speaker 1: Rubber wasn't good because it had too much bounce. Um.

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Speaker 1: The rackets were really kind of crazy looking at first.

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Speaker 1: Someone had really long handles, kind of look like a

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Speaker 1: bad mitten racket um with a vellum stretched over a

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Speaker 1: wooden frame. But they were not Uh, they broke on

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Speaker 1: the table and stuff. So they were really kind of

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Speaker 1: refining it in those early years as far as the

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Speaker 1: equipment goes, right, Um, and I think it was that

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Speaker 1: was it Jaque, No, you know, it was Jacques the J. J.

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Speaker 1: Jackuin's son who um were the ones that were selling

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Speaker 1: those like what you just described, just kind of cheap,

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Speaker 1: not well made, not really well thought out equipment for

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Speaker 1: ping pong, which it wasn't called ping pong at the

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Speaker 1: time until the late eighteen nineties when that same company,

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Speaker 1: Jay Jacques and Son, who were a sporting goods outfit,

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Speaker 1: started calling it ping pong in their catalog. It just

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Speaker 1: converted from gossima over to ping pong through these guys. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and it was um before that. In eighty five, there

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Speaker 1: was an attempt to patent it as table tennis by

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Speaker 1: guy named James Debonshire. But uh, two years later he

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Speaker 1: abandoned that pursuit. I don't know if it was just

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Speaker 1: taking too long or if he saw the writing on

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Speaker 1: the wall, but he he left that behind and then

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Speaker 1: it would be um. Like you said. Nineteen o one

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Speaker 1: was when Jean Jack trademarked at ping pong name yep.

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Speaker 1: And then Parker Brothers bought the North American or at

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Speaker 1: least American rights to use ping pong exclusively and they

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Speaker 1: brought ping pong to the United States with that um.

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Speaker 1: And this is the reason why if you you know,

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Speaker 1: look up any professional association or any um competitive like

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Speaker 1: ping pong group, they always refer to as table tennis

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Speaker 1: because ping pong is a trademark, table tennis is not. Plus, also,

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Speaker 1: over the years, ping pong has gotten an association with

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Speaker 1: people like me. Yeah, just people having fun playing it,

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Speaker 1: where table tennis has been the route that you know,

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Speaker 1: most competitive. Um that that that it did notes competitiveness,

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Speaker 1: competition pro kind of thing. But I think if you're

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Speaker 1: just hanging around the locker room or whatever with some

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Speaker 1: table tennis pros, they'll refer to it as ping pong

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Speaker 1: and no one's like, oh, I can't believe you just

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Speaker 1: called it that, and you were like, no, that's locker

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Speaker 1: room talk. So uh. The same year that ping pong

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Speaker 1: was trademarked, in nineteen o one, there was an Englishman

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Speaker 1: named James Gibb. He found these celluloid balls when he

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Speaker 1: went to the US that were just it wasn't for

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Speaker 1: table tennis. It was just a toy and novelty toy.

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Speaker 1: He's like, this is pretty great. Actually, it's pretty lively.

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Speaker 1: It's light, uh, just the right amount of bounce. And

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Speaker 1: so I think celluloid is kind of like the route

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Speaker 1: we should take. And everyone seemed to agree and that

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Speaker 1: sort of became the de facto ping pong ball, right,

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Speaker 1: did say that way forever. Celluloid is a type of plastic.

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Speaker 1: It's super flammable, like it's what film stock, like camera

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Speaker 1: film was made from forever um. But like I said,

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Speaker 1: it's very flammable and your ball is gonna go up

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Speaker 1: in flames if you pass it over a candle, like

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Speaker 1: if you're lighting your game by candles. So that's not

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Speaker 1: very good. But that was an enormous change that pushed

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Speaker 1: ping pong way forward, because up to that point, a

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Speaker 1: corkball didn bounced very well. Rubber ball bounced too much.

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Speaker 1: You couldn't really play ping pong like we see it today.

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Speaker 1: It was more like, oh, sir, oh sorry, here's another service.

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Speaker 1: Oh sorry, here's another service. My point, it was just boring.

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Speaker 1: When that guy came along with the celluloid balls and

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Speaker 1: introduced him for ping pong play, that was it made

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Speaker 1: it fun. Finally, ping pong finally became fun. Yeah. Just

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Speaker 1: a year after that to the paddle, and this is

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Speaker 1: all sort of aligning perfectly. The paddle underwent a big

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Speaker 1: change um over the years proceeding. They had used cork

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Speaker 1: to cover them and leather sometimes. I saw that you

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Speaker 1: can still buy leather covered ping pong paddles, and Tiffany's yeah,

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Speaker 1: I could totally see that pearl handled leather, leather facing. Uh,

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Speaker 1: but they couldn't land on the right materials, and then

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Speaker 1: Attwo at a tournament, a man named ec Good found

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Speaker 1: this dimpled rubber coin mat wrapped it around his paddle

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Speaker 1: and he's like, this thing is pretty boss. I can

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Speaker 1: get a little spin on it. We got this ball

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Speaker 1: from the year before, and everything sort of clicking at

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Speaker 1: this point, right. That was so you've got the great ball,

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Speaker 1: You've got the great covering, um, and now Ping Pong

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Speaker 1: is ready to explode, and it started to and then

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Speaker 1: it just stopped. Let's take a break, okay, all right,

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Speaker 1: that's a good cliffhanger and find out what killed Ping

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Speaker 1: Pong right after this. Well, now we're on the road,

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Speaker 1: driving in your truck. Want to learn a thing or

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Speaker 1: two from Josh camp Chuck. It's stuff you should know,

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Speaker 1: all right, all right, So Ping Pong's finally coming into

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Speaker 1: its own limbs, finally getting good. And then right as

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Speaker 1: it is, it just it just drops off as a

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Speaker 1: fad that craze, especially in the United States, and I

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Speaker 1: think in Europe too. It just kind of went away.

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Speaker 1: Um And there's no real obvious reason why. But our

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Speaker 1: old pal ed dug up an example that he thinks

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Speaker 1: might be behind it. There was an ad for the

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Speaker 1: National Guard in nineteen fourteen, where one of the major

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Speaker 1: generals in the National Guards said that they don't want

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Speaker 1: any ping pong warriors, which implies that the sport was

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Speaker 1: seen as um effeminate or that you were kind of

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Speaker 1: a whimp or something if you play ping pong. So

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Speaker 1: it's possible that like that kind of um uh, the

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Speaker 1: warlike masculinity rose above it and ping pong got pushed

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Speaker 1: down as a result. Well. And also World War One

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Speaker 1: in the Spanish flu um probably put a dent in

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Speaker 1: in fun games like this overall, I would say, I mean,

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Speaker 1: that's just a guess. But they had more important, more

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Speaker 1: important fish to fry than playing ping pong. But came

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Speaker 1: back right after the war, right right after the war.

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Speaker 1: And I don't think that it is coincidental that this

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Speaker 1: was also a time when people started smoking pot a

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Speaker 1: lot in America, the jazz age UM. So you had jazz, marijuana, cigarettes,

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Speaker 1: and ping pong. Those are the big three of the

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Speaker 1: jazz age. Quite a mix, yeah, And then so Parker

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Speaker 1: Brothers still had their their trademark on this whole thing.

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Speaker 1: They're like, oh, great, hallelujah, it's the jazz age UM

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Speaker 1: and they started throwing these competitions with cash prizes, and

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Speaker 1: celebrities showed up. It was a big deal. Yeah. Imagine

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Speaker 1: during the marijuana craze too, they were like, this is

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Speaker 1: great for what we're doing, but we gotta keep score.

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Speaker 1: And that's a problem, right, somebody's gotta stay sober for this,

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Speaker 1: Like who what was it? Who served? Was it? No way?

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Speaker 1: Is it? Seven six? Man? You're way too uptight for this.

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Speaker 1: So I believe in the twenties is when they started

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Speaker 1: having these big tournaments Parker Brothers with prizes. Celebrities were

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Speaker 1: coming out. Um, the i T t F. It was

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Speaker 1: officially founded in the mid twenties. That's the International Table

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Speaker 1: Tennis Foundation. Yeah, and they start having world championships in

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Speaker 1: nineteen six, Yeah, like right off the bat. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: it was a big deal. Like obviously they stopped during

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Speaker 1: World War Two for a peer period of time, but

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Speaker 1: pretty much every couple of years since ninety six, aside

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Speaker 1: from the war, Um, they started holding these Uh I

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Speaker 1: guess would it be bi annual or over two years?

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Speaker 1: Well that could be, yes, bi annuals over two years,

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Speaker 1: that's not twice here, I think it can be. That

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Speaker 1: was one of those things I think you would use

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Speaker 1: semi semi annual, might even be quarterly. I'm not sure.

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Speaker 1: I think it can be neither one, just like with weekly. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but those first years, uh, Hungarians were the dominant country. Um.

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Speaker 1: They won eight of the first nine. Um. Four of

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Speaker 1: those went to the same guy, a guy named Victor

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Speaker 1: Bara one, thirty two, thirty three, thirty four, and thirty five. Man,

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Speaker 1: that's good. Yeah, so he was doing pretty good. But

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Speaker 1: the United States was not. No, they, like I said,

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Speaker 1: the U s t t A didn't form until nineteen

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Speaker 1: thirty three. And even then, if you wanted to go

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Speaker 1: play really like hih level table tennis, you went to

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Speaker 1: one place in the entire country, Lawrence's Broadway Courts in

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Speaker 1: Manhattan Town. You gotta go to New York if you

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Speaker 1: want to play ping pong. See if you can make

317
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Speaker 1: it there. You can make it anywhere in the US,

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Speaker 1: but don't even try it in Hungary. Yeah, it just wasn't. Uh,

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Speaker 1: it just didn't catch on like it did in Europe. No,

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Speaker 1: it didn't. And this is like this is the same,

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Speaker 1: like there's never I think it was kind of big

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Speaker 1: in the seventies to again POT in the United States,

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Speaker 1: but um, it's never been like ex like explosively sustainably

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Speaker 1: popular like it has in other countries and in particular. Um. So,

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Speaker 1: the Europeans are dominating table tennis from about the mid

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Speaker 1: twenties to almost went to the early fifties. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: then from thirty to fifty the Soviet Union banned it

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Speaker 1: for twenty years. That left of Soviet vacuum. Okay, so

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Speaker 1: so the Hungarians, well, the Hungarians would have been an

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Speaker 1: Soviet control then, huh. I don't know the answer to

331
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Speaker 1: that question. Yeah, I guess they would have been, So

332
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Speaker 1: that would have I guess. I wonder if that's when

333
00:19:08,640 --> 00:19:12,680
Speaker 1: it moved over to Western Europe. Northwestern Europe, like Sweden

334
00:19:12,920 --> 00:19:17,199
Speaker 1: in Germany. Yeah, supposedly the best all time players a Swede.

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Speaker 1: That's what I've heard too, the Mozart table tenants U

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Speaker 1: Jean Jean ov Waldner. Oh you with the oh the

337
00:19:30,480 --> 00:19:32,480
Speaker 1: gen part, I'm like, I don't know if he's Swedish

338
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Speaker 1: and then the ove really got me. Probably not John,

339
00:19:34,359 --> 00:19:38,800
Speaker 1: it's probably yahn yn Ova Waldner. Yeah, nice, supposedly the

340
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Speaker 1: best ever. So is he contemporary? M hmm, I don't know. Okay, So, um,

341
00:19:45,840 --> 00:19:49,200
Speaker 1: so you've got this, You've got Europe dominating America's like,

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Speaker 1: we're not even trying right now. And this is basically

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Speaker 1: from the twenties to the early fifties. And then in

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Speaker 1: n Asia steps in and says, don't forget Asia. UM

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Speaker 1: in the form of a man named hiro Ji Sato

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Speaker 1: and Uh. He showed up at the World Championship in

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Speaker 1: ninety two, UH in Bombay or Mumbai, and he said, hey,

348
00:20:11,000 --> 00:20:13,000
Speaker 1: you know how there's no rules about what kind of

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00:20:13,080 --> 00:20:15,080
Speaker 1: paddle I can use or what size it is, or

350
00:20:15,440 --> 00:20:17,960
Speaker 1: there's not really a lot of a lot of guidance

351
00:20:18,040 --> 00:20:21,720
Speaker 1: on the paddle. Check this out. He had put foam

352
00:20:22,119 --> 00:20:25,440
Speaker 1: around his paddle, and boy did that make the ball

353
00:20:25,520 --> 00:20:28,360
Speaker 1: bounce back. It increased the speed of the ball tremendously

354
00:20:28,720 --> 00:20:32,359
Speaker 1: and he just dominated that that tournament and became world

355
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Speaker 1: champion in nineteen fifty two. By the way, that guy

356
00:20:35,560 --> 00:20:41,919
Speaker 1: is totally contemporary. He's in his fifties, he's retired now.

357
00:20:41,920 --> 00:20:43,800
Speaker 1: I don't know why you would retire from table tennis.

358
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Speaker 1: So one thing I read, I read an article about

359
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Speaker 1: a kid who is one of the best in the world,

360
00:20:50,160 --> 00:20:55,400
Speaker 1: who is actually from America's an Indian American. Um. He Uh,

361
00:20:55,920 --> 00:20:59,120
Speaker 1: he trains like he has to train to move around

362
00:20:59,160 --> 00:21:02,960
Speaker 1: the table fast off. Well, supposedly, if you're an advanced player,

363
00:21:03,040 --> 00:21:06,080
Speaker 1: you can burn up to five calories an hour playing

364
00:21:06,119 --> 00:21:08,800
Speaker 1: table tennis. Is that right? That's what they say. That's

365
00:21:08,840 --> 00:21:10,960
Speaker 1: a that's a Snickers bar and a half. Yeah, I

366
00:21:11,000 --> 00:21:14,760
Speaker 1: mean I work up a sweat. That's that's me as well, though,

367
00:21:14,840 --> 00:21:18,880
Speaker 1: So take that in consideration. Yeah, I can sweat playing chess.

368
00:21:19,280 --> 00:21:20,920
Speaker 1: I can't wait till you reach the age where you

369
00:21:21,040 --> 00:21:23,960
Speaker 1: just walk around in public with a hand towel around

370
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Speaker 1: your neck. Who does that? What's his name from the office, Robinson?

371
00:21:30,600 --> 00:21:32,960
Speaker 1: Is that his name? Oh Craig, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Speaker 1: I think he's famous for sort of just draping a

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Speaker 1: sweat towel over his shoulder. Yeah, why not, you know,

374
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Speaker 1: good for him. I'm gonna follow that lead. So there's

375
00:21:41,520 --> 00:21:44,520
Speaker 1: worse leads you could follow, for sure. Yeah. So, um

376
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Speaker 1: Heirogi Sato showed up with his foam paddled um paddle

377
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Speaker 1: or foam covered paddle and just dominate and became the

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Speaker 1: the hero or the champion of that tournament and of

379
00:21:57,640 --> 00:22:02,040
Speaker 1: the world. But there's two legends that happened to him afterward.

380
00:22:02,119 --> 00:22:06,200
Speaker 1: One he returned home and was hailed a hero and

381
00:22:06,240 --> 00:22:10,000
Speaker 1: a champion by Japan, and two he returned home and

382
00:22:10,320 --> 00:22:14,320
Speaker 1: was scorned as a dishonorable winner because he used an

383
00:22:14,359 --> 00:22:19,160
Speaker 1: unusual paddle and never played table tennis again. And um,

384
00:22:19,320 --> 00:22:21,000
Speaker 1: it turns out that he doesn't show up in any

385
00:22:21,040 --> 00:22:24,080
Speaker 1: other tournament after that one. So maybe he was like, well,

386
00:22:24,480 --> 00:22:27,159
Speaker 1: I achieved it, I'm gonna go do some other stuff.

387
00:22:27,840 --> 00:22:31,200
Speaker 1: Or um, maybe he really was like, this was this

388
00:22:31,520 --> 00:22:35,280
Speaker 1: everyone's right, this was dishonorable. I'm never going to play again. Interesting.

389
00:22:35,480 --> 00:22:38,520
Speaker 1: I hope there wasn't some nefarious action taken. I hope

390
00:22:38,520 --> 00:22:41,600
Speaker 1: so too. So Over the years, uh, a lot of

391
00:22:41,760 --> 00:22:45,680
Speaker 1: changes have taken place to make it more um playable

392
00:22:45,760 --> 00:22:49,200
Speaker 1: and more and this is like the official rules in competition.

393
00:22:49,640 --> 00:22:51,720
Speaker 1: To make it more playable and to make it better

394
00:22:51,800 --> 00:22:55,199
Speaker 1: for people watching it. Um, they lower the net by

395
00:22:55,240 --> 00:22:57,920
Speaker 1: about an inch over the years, um to make it

396
00:22:58,200 --> 00:23:01,960
Speaker 1: guess a little zippier and more fun. Uh, they increase Actually,

397
00:23:02,080 --> 00:23:05,000
Speaker 1: not too long ago, in two thousand, they increased the

398
00:23:05,080 --> 00:23:08,040
Speaker 1: size of the ball by two millimeters to slow it

399
00:23:08,119 --> 00:23:11,399
Speaker 1: down a little bit. Um, because it was getting so

400
00:23:11,480 --> 00:23:14,159
Speaker 1: fast people couldn't even follow it. It was like Forrest

401
00:23:14,200 --> 00:23:17,199
Speaker 1: Gump up in there and people like it doesn't I mean,

402
00:23:17,240 --> 00:23:18,879
Speaker 1: it has to be a I mean it's not a

403
00:23:18,920 --> 00:23:20,840
Speaker 1: big TV sport here obviously, but it's a big TV

404
00:23:20,920 --> 00:23:23,400
Speaker 1: sport in a lot of the world, Like people watch

405
00:23:23,520 --> 00:23:25,960
Speaker 1: this stuff. Yeah, I mean the camera has to be

406
00:23:26,040 --> 00:23:28,479
Speaker 1: able to see where the ball is going, which isn't hockey.

407
00:23:28,640 --> 00:23:31,439
Speaker 1: You know, people want to see what's going on. They

408
00:23:31,440 --> 00:23:34,040
Speaker 1: could do the glowing ball like they did in hockey

409
00:23:34,080 --> 00:23:37,240
Speaker 1: for a while. Oh, I forgot about that. Yeah, same

410
00:23:37,280 --> 00:23:40,160
Speaker 1: company that did the ten yard line or the first

411
00:23:40,200 --> 00:23:43,360
Speaker 1: down line. Oh right, yeah, was it really yeah, yeah

412
00:23:43,359 --> 00:23:47,479
Speaker 1: it was. I think Pat did glowy things, right. Um,

413
00:23:47,680 --> 00:23:49,600
Speaker 1: I think we talked about I can't remember what episode

414
00:23:49,640 --> 00:23:52,240
Speaker 1: we talked about that one before. But okay, so you

415
00:23:52,320 --> 00:23:56,600
Speaker 1: have the foam paddled padded paddle, you've got um balls

416
00:23:56,680 --> 00:24:00,960
Speaker 1: that work really well, and um you had have uh

417
00:24:01,280 --> 00:24:04,359
Speaker 1: what else, chuck, you have a lowered net. Yeah, you

418
00:24:04,400 --> 00:24:07,920
Speaker 1: have a bigger ball you have and and then probably

419
00:24:08,000 --> 00:24:13,200
Speaker 1: the cream of the crop. That's not what I'm looking for, man,

420
00:24:13,320 --> 00:24:19,320
Speaker 1: am I just no, that's the death below, um the

421
00:24:19,720 --> 00:24:26,400
Speaker 1: uh well, the pinnacle. They made it an Olympic Summer sport. Ah, yes, yes,

422
00:24:27,200 --> 00:24:30,439
Speaker 1: Which now it's like, okay, now you're not just wasting

423
00:24:30,480 --> 00:24:33,200
Speaker 1: your life being a pro table tennis player just just

424
00:24:33,359 --> 00:24:35,520
Speaker 1: in it for the pot. You know, you can actually

425
00:24:35,640 --> 00:24:38,760
Speaker 1: train to go to the Olympics for your country. That's right,

426
00:24:39,600 --> 00:24:43,719
Speaker 1: pretty monumental. Um, should we talk about playing styles a bit?

427
00:24:44,560 --> 00:24:46,480
Speaker 1: I think we should. I like where you're I like

428
00:24:46,600 --> 00:24:49,640
Speaker 1: where you're going or not going with this next? Well,

429
00:24:50,119 --> 00:24:53,040
Speaker 1: uh so the point is made in this article that, um,

430
00:24:53,720 --> 00:24:56,600
Speaker 1: table tennis is is a game all about the style

431
00:24:56,680 --> 00:24:59,040
Speaker 1: of play, sort of like boxing. You can come out

432
00:24:59,080 --> 00:25:01,560
Speaker 1: swinging hard, you can come out with the rope a dope.

433
00:25:02,040 --> 00:25:04,679
Speaker 1: You can play defense in boxing, and you can kind

434
00:25:04,680 --> 00:25:06,639
Speaker 1: of do that in tennis. You can be really aggressive

435
00:25:07,200 --> 00:25:09,280
Speaker 1: and try and set up for the big smashes, or

436
00:25:10,160 --> 00:25:12,280
Speaker 1: you could be what's known as a chiseler or a

437
00:25:12,320 --> 00:25:16,240
Speaker 1: pusher and just be really fundamentally sound and wait for

438
00:25:16,320 --> 00:25:19,760
Speaker 1: your opponent to make a mistake. Right, And that was

439
00:25:19,880 --> 00:25:23,280
Speaker 1: Chiseling was huge, um back before the phone paddles, because

440
00:25:23,320 --> 00:25:25,800
Speaker 1: that's all you really had. You couldn't you couldn't attack

441
00:25:25,920 --> 00:25:29,360
Speaker 1: with a huge, super fast return. I mean you could try,

442
00:25:29,440 --> 00:25:31,960
Speaker 1: but it wasn't going to really work. Um, But once

443
00:25:32,040 --> 00:25:36,960
Speaker 1: the introduction of foam came around, chiseling became like a decision.

444
00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:39,840
Speaker 1: You could also be an attacker as well. Yeah, I

445
00:25:39,880 --> 00:25:41,600
Speaker 1: mean I think now you've got to have all of

446
00:25:42,080 --> 00:25:45,480
Speaker 1: the weapons in your ping pong arsenal right, exactly. You

447
00:25:45,560 --> 00:25:48,280
Speaker 1: know you can play the spin game. You can be defensive,

448
00:25:48,320 --> 00:25:51,800
Speaker 1: but you also gotta hang fifteen feet back off the

449
00:25:51,880 --> 00:25:55,520
Speaker 1: table and hit those big loop shots, right. Yeah, you

450
00:25:55,560 --> 00:25:57,600
Speaker 1: want to be able to do both for sure. So

451
00:25:57,880 --> 00:26:01,560
Speaker 1: with the chiselers though, the defensive minded uh people in

452
00:26:02,480 --> 00:26:07,640
Speaker 1: this legendary match took place the World Championships between two

453
00:26:07,760 --> 00:26:11,800
Speaker 1: of the greatest chiselers of all time, um, a Polish

454
00:26:11,840 --> 00:26:15,480
Speaker 1: player named Alex Rlick and a Romanian named Penneth Farcas.

455
00:26:16,640 --> 00:26:19,720
Speaker 1: This was such a like, I mean, I've read into

456
00:26:19,760 --> 00:26:23,159
Speaker 1: this too. It just doesn't seem like it's possible that

457
00:26:23,280 --> 00:26:26,280
Speaker 1: the following took place. Okay, well, that's this is how

458
00:26:26,960 --> 00:26:30,399
Speaker 1: it was recorded in nine and Sports Illustrated. All right,

459
00:26:30,440 --> 00:26:34,239
Speaker 1: there are a lot of little points here. By the way,

460
00:26:34,280 --> 00:26:38,320
Speaker 1: Did you say that the most epic part of this

461
00:26:38,600 --> 00:26:42,800
Speaker 1: is it was the first point? Um? Supposedly, the very

462
00:26:42,880 --> 00:26:46,120
Speaker 1: first point took two hours and twelve minutes to complete,

463
00:26:47,080 --> 00:26:49,000
Speaker 1: so they just kept hitting it back and forth. It

464
00:26:49,080 --> 00:26:51,159
Speaker 1: was a two hour and twelve minute volley. It was

465
00:26:51,280 --> 00:26:56,119
Speaker 1: zero zero at two hours in twelve minutes. That's how

466
00:26:56,200 --> 00:26:59,000
Speaker 1: good these guys were at chiseling or just playing defensively.

467
00:26:59,359 --> 00:27:01,600
Speaker 1: Like somebody his do you hit it right back? Somebody

468
00:27:01,640 --> 00:27:03,480
Speaker 1: has do you hit it right back? You're not trying

469
00:27:03,600 --> 00:27:07,960
Speaker 1: to smash it down their throat. You're just patiently waiting

470
00:27:08,040 --> 00:27:10,640
Speaker 1: for them to make a mistake. It's a fast game still,

471
00:27:10,760 --> 00:27:14,439
Speaker 1: It's not like playing with a six year old, right,

472
00:27:14,560 --> 00:27:17,040
Speaker 1: But the thing is is it's a fast game, but you,

473
00:27:17,400 --> 00:27:20,760
Speaker 1: as the player and probably as a spectator, are like

474
00:27:21,320 --> 00:27:23,800
Speaker 1: start to feel like you're about to go insane because

475
00:27:23,840 --> 00:27:27,280
Speaker 1: you're locked into this zero zero like this. For at

476
00:27:27,320 --> 00:27:30,679
Speaker 1: the time ping pong was played to twenty one. Whoever

477
00:27:30,720 --> 00:27:32,200
Speaker 1: got to twenty one first, and then you had to

478
00:27:32,240 --> 00:27:35,520
Speaker 1: still win by two points. So if this was zero

479
00:27:35,680 --> 00:27:38,440
Speaker 1: zero for two hours and twelve minutes, the ball cross

480
00:27:38,520 --> 00:27:41,080
Speaker 1: the net twelve thousand times, I just don't know if

481
00:27:41,080 --> 00:27:44,000
Speaker 1: I buy it. That's a problem time wise. Yeah, So

482
00:27:44,119 --> 00:27:47,040
Speaker 1: here's all the things that supposedly happened. Um a referee

483
00:27:47,080 --> 00:27:49,600
Speaker 1: in the match his neck locked up and had to

484
00:27:49,640 --> 00:27:52,880
Speaker 1: be replaced. Midpoint, his neck had to be replaced. Yeah,

485
00:27:53,680 --> 00:27:56,240
Speaker 1: Orlick switched hands because he got tired and played with

486
00:27:56,320 --> 00:27:58,040
Speaker 1: his left hand for a little while every now and then.

487
00:27:58,080 --> 00:28:01,520
Speaker 1: I believe that um during ring the point, the I

488
00:28:01,680 --> 00:28:07,840
Speaker 1: T T F got together to negotiate shortening the match,

489
00:28:07,960 --> 00:28:10,879
Speaker 1: the game to five points instead of twenty one. Right,

490
00:28:10,960 --> 00:28:14,560
Speaker 1: But they had to have the proper representatives from the

491
00:28:14,640 --> 00:28:18,680
Speaker 1: different countries there, and it air Like was the representative

492
00:28:18,680 --> 00:28:21,040
Speaker 1: from Poland, so they couldn't have this meeting without him.

493
00:28:21,119 --> 00:28:24,520
Speaker 1: So they had the meeting table side during the match,

494
00:28:24,640 --> 00:28:27,800
Speaker 1: like during this point as it was going on, Supposedly

495
00:28:28,000 --> 00:28:32,640
Speaker 1: Airlic had a chessboard set up table side and during

496
00:28:32,720 --> 00:28:35,760
Speaker 1: the match was also playing chess and saying what move

497
00:28:35,880 --> 00:28:39,440
Speaker 1: to make? I don't know about that, That's what he said.

498
00:28:39,880 --> 00:28:41,440
Speaker 1: That's why I don't believe any of this. This all

499
00:28:41,480 --> 00:28:44,440
Speaker 1: sounds like tall tale. Well there are other people there,

500
00:28:45,600 --> 00:28:48,360
Speaker 1: all right, Well, then he played chess, I don't I

501
00:28:48,440 --> 00:28:50,640
Speaker 1: don't know about that one, but I do think that

502
00:28:50,720 --> 00:28:53,800
Speaker 1: there are definite elements to that. I believe that there

503
00:28:53,920 --> 00:28:55,800
Speaker 1: was a two hour and twelve minute period where there

504
00:28:55,840 --> 00:28:59,120
Speaker 1: were zero to zero I don't know. Um, at least

505
00:28:59,240 --> 00:29:02,840
Speaker 1: that's that's true. Well, there's so much stuff attached to

506
00:29:02,960 --> 00:29:05,880
Speaker 1: this it makes me doubt the whole thing. Um. Austrian

507
00:29:05,920 --> 00:29:09,160
Speaker 1: players suppose he went to a movie, came back still

508
00:29:09,280 --> 00:29:15,920
Speaker 1: during the first point um, and then finally the Romanian

509
00:29:16,080 --> 00:29:22,440
Speaker 1: paneth Farcas Mr return erlic goes up one oh, and

510
00:29:22,600 --> 00:29:26,560
Speaker 1: then they started on point number two. They get twenty

511
00:29:26,600 --> 00:29:31,000
Speaker 1: minutes into that one, and supposedly other members of the

512
00:29:31,120 --> 00:29:36,160
Speaker 1: Polish team pulled out knives and bread and a two

513
00:29:36,240 --> 00:29:40,360
Speaker 1: ft sausage, thinking that they were going to be there forever,

514
00:29:41,200 --> 00:29:46,680
Speaker 1: and this made Farcas basically lose his mind. He lost

515
00:29:46,760 --> 00:29:50,240
Speaker 1: his marbles. Like Burger King, he went on the attack.

516
00:29:50,320 --> 00:29:53,000
Speaker 1: At that point, he went from being a what do

517
00:29:53,040 --> 00:29:55,880
Speaker 1: they call the chiseler to going hard on the attack.

518
00:29:57,160 --> 00:30:01,520
Speaker 1: Hit it twice, erlick returned both and then he basically

519
00:30:01,680 --> 00:30:05,640
Speaker 1: lost it. Supposedly just blasted the ball over his head

520
00:30:05,720 --> 00:30:10,560
Speaker 1: and ran out screaming. I love that story. That's one

521
00:30:10,600 --> 00:30:13,320
Speaker 1: of the better ping punk stories around. Yeah, I believe

522
00:30:13,360 --> 00:30:16,400
Speaker 1: about it all right, But even if the only thing

523
00:30:16,520 --> 00:30:19,400
Speaker 1: you believe is that they were zero zero for two

524
00:30:19,480 --> 00:30:22,280
Speaker 1: hours and twelve minutes. Now you keep saying I believe that.

525
00:30:22,680 --> 00:30:25,360
Speaker 1: I'm saying even if that is the only thing you believe,

526
00:30:25,920 --> 00:30:28,840
Speaker 1: then that's good enough. I don't buy any of it.

527
00:30:29,000 --> 00:30:30,680
Speaker 1: What do you think, like that there was a match

528
00:30:30,800 --> 00:30:33,400
Speaker 1: between these two and then that's it. Everything else is

529
00:30:33,440 --> 00:30:36,080
Speaker 1: made up? No, I think I think Laura has taken

530
00:30:36,160 --> 00:30:38,280
Speaker 1: over and that it has been enriched over the years

531
00:30:38,360 --> 00:30:40,880
Speaker 1: to where people were going to movies and the dude

532
00:30:40,960 --> 00:30:44,480
Speaker 1: was playing chess. Sure, sure, yeah, I just I don't

533
00:30:44,480 --> 00:30:46,080
Speaker 1: I don't buy it that it went down like that.

534
00:30:46,440 --> 00:30:48,840
Speaker 1: But do you believe that they were zero zero for

535
00:30:48,960 --> 00:30:51,360
Speaker 1: two hours and twelve minutes. I don't know if I

536
00:30:51,440 --> 00:30:55,280
Speaker 1: believe that or not, because I haven't seen a verified

537
00:30:55,360 --> 00:31:00,240
Speaker 1: source other than this guy telling the story. Okay, where

538
00:31:00,280 --> 00:31:02,920
Speaker 1: did you see it other than this guy telling the story? Nowhere?

539
00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:04,720
Speaker 1: But I mean, like that takes a lot of goal

540
00:31:04,880 --> 00:31:07,760
Speaker 1: to just make up that story, tell it to Sports Illustrated,

541
00:31:07,800 --> 00:31:11,200
Speaker 1: have it printed in Sports Illustrated, knowing that anybody could

542
00:31:11,240 --> 00:31:13,280
Speaker 1: go behind you and say, well, let's look at the

543
00:31:13,360 --> 00:31:16,160
Speaker 1: records for that night and see and just say, well,

544
00:31:16,240 --> 00:31:22,320
Speaker 1: this guy is totally lying. Is people have goal? Yeah, Well,

545
00:31:22,400 --> 00:31:24,360
Speaker 1: you and I are going to agree to disagree, just

546
00:31:24,480 --> 00:31:26,360
Speaker 1: to keep things moving, because I think at the very

547
00:31:26,480 --> 00:31:29,880
Speaker 1: least they were zero zero for two hours and twelve minutes.

548
00:31:29,960 --> 00:31:32,080
Speaker 1: I buy that. Here's what I think. I'm definitely not

549
00:31:32,160 --> 00:31:36,400
Speaker 1: gonna say. Well it was in Sports Illustrated what so

550
00:31:36,520 --> 00:31:40,280
Speaker 1: it had to be true? Alright, alright, So enough for

551
00:31:40,280 --> 00:31:43,040
Speaker 1: waging on Sports Illustrated from you. Hey, and I got

552
00:31:43,080 --> 00:31:45,920
Speaker 1: that magazine for many many years. You know who's on

553
00:31:45,960 --> 00:31:50,960
Speaker 1: my first cover? Giselle Bunching Muhammad Ali. Oh wow, I

554
00:31:51,040 --> 00:31:53,160
Speaker 1: started getting it when I was a kid. Jeez, wow,

555
00:31:53,480 --> 00:31:54,960
Speaker 1: do you still have that one? I'll bet it's worth

556
00:31:55,040 --> 00:31:57,720
Speaker 1: like seven ten dollars now, I do. I think my

557
00:31:57,800 --> 00:32:00,760
Speaker 1: mom kept all the like many many years in a box.

558
00:32:01,360 --> 00:32:02,720
Speaker 1: It's kind of fun to go through and look every

559
00:32:02,760 --> 00:32:05,000
Speaker 1: now and then. Oh yeah, for sure. All right, so

560
00:32:05,840 --> 00:32:11,520
Speaker 1: this fake match happens uh in the nineteen thirties, um

561
00:32:12,480 --> 00:32:14,880
Speaker 1: Jewish table tennis players, and we should point out that

562
00:32:15,240 --> 00:32:18,239
Speaker 1: many of the early world champions were Jewish men. Um.

563
00:32:18,320 --> 00:32:23,080
Speaker 1: They fled Germany for England and then uh Erlick, who

564
00:32:23,120 --> 00:32:27,880
Speaker 1: we just mentioned the Polish player was threatened. Obviously, he

565
00:32:28,040 --> 00:32:31,760
Speaker 1: was in Poland when the Nazis invaded and he was

566
00:32:31,800 --> 00:32:36,160
Speaker 1: sent to Auschwitz and he was literally being led to

567
00:32:36,280 --> 00:32:41,000
Speaker 1: the gas chamber when a German Nazi guard recognized him

568
00:32:41,600 --> 00:32:46,360
Speaker 1: and spared his life. Yeah, like he was about to die.

569
00:32:46,440 --> 00:32:49,320
Speaker 1: And he got moved around from concentration camp to concentration

570
00:32:49,400 --> 00:32:53,880
Speaker 1: camp until the Allies liberated him and others from the

571
00:32:53,920 --> 00:32:56,240
Speaker 1: concentration camp he was in. And then right after the

572
00:32:56,280 --> 00:32:59,959
Speaker 1: war he went right back to table tennis. Yeah, it's

573
00:33:00,080 --> 00:33:02,600
Speaker 1: pretty crazy, all right. I think we should take a break,

574
00:33:02,840 --> 00:33:06,280
Speaker 1: okay and go talk about Sports Illustrated some more, alright,

575
00:33:06,480 --> 00:33:11,920
Speaker 1: that the bastion of and journalism, and we'll be back

576
00:33:12,080 --> 00:33:16,240
Speaker 1: right after this. Well, now we're on the road, driving

577
00:33:16,360 --> 00:33:18,800
Speaker 1: in your truck. Want to learn a thing or two

578
00:33:19,120 --> 00:33:25,400
Speaker 1: from Josh M chuck It stuff you should know, all right,

579
00:33:42,080 --> 00:33:44,240
Speaker 1: all right, So Chuck Um, we were talking about like

580
00:33:44,360 --> 00:33:47,160
Speaker 1: chiselers and attackers and all that. And at first, if

581
00:33:47,200 --> 00:33:49,760
Speaker 1: you played ping pong up until the fifties, up until

582
00:33:50,280 --> 00:33:54,000
Speaker 1: Sato showed up with his phone paddle, um, you're basically

583
00:33:54,120 --> 00:33:57,120
Speaker 1: just chiseling. Everybody was chiseling. This is a patient, back

584
00:33:57,160 --> 00:33:59,920
Speaker 1: and forth game. Once the phone paddles came up and

585
00:34:00,040 --> 00:34:02,040
Speaker 1: change the game so radically, like you said, they actually

586
00:34:02,160 --> 00:34:04,800
Speaker 1: enlarged the size of the ball to increase the air

587
00:34:04,880 --> 00:34:07,760
Speaker 1: assistance to it to slow it down, which was a

588
00:34:07,840 --> 00:34:09,960
Speaker 1: huge change for everybody to get used to as well.

589
00:34:10,000 --> 00:34:11,680
Speaker 1: I think that was in the two thousands that that

590
00:34:11,800 --> 00:34:14,480
Speaker 1: change was made, But from the fifties to the two

591
00:34:14,520 --> 00:34:17,640
Speaker 1: thousand's people were just crushing the ping pong ball. It

592
00:34:17,719 --> 00:34:20,000
Speaker 1: got really fast and really fast paced. It was fun,

593
00:34:20,080 --> 00:34:24,279
Speaker 1: but it got too fast. So um, the the I T.

594
00:34:24,440 --> 00:34:26,360
Speaker 1: T F stepped in and said, now we got to

595
00:34:26,400 --> 00:34:28,759
Speaker 1: make some changes. And that's some of the other things

596
00:34:28,800 --> 00:34:31,160
Speaker 1: that they've done too. They've made changes and rules over

597
00:34:31,280 --> 00:34:34,719
Speaker 1: the over the lifetime of ping pong to to make

598
00:34:34,800 --> 00:34:38,560
Speaker 1: the game hard and interesting, but also to make it

599
00:34:38,680 --> 00:34:42,279
Speaker 1: fun to watch too. Yeah, they now you play to

600
00:34:42,360 --> 00:34:46,440
Speaker 1: eleven in competition play um used to be twenty one

601
00:34:46,719 --> 00:34:50,359
Speaker 1: for most, uh, just sort of backyard fund players. It's

602
00:34:50,560 --> 00:34:54,200
Speaker 1: still twenty one, but these people are these people are

603
00:34:54,280 --> 00:34:56,880
Speaker 1: so good though that twenty one. It's just way too

604
00:34:56,960 --> 00:34:59,160
Speaker 1: long of a game. You can play a point for

605
00:34:59,280 --> 00:35:01,800
Speaker 1: two and a half hour, right, two hours and twelve

606
00:35:01,840 --> 00:35:05,880
Speaker 1: minutes to be precise. Uh. They change sometimes the serve rotation,

607
00:35:06,000 --> 00:35:07,839
Speaker 1: like how many times you serve in a row before

608
00:35:07,880 --> 00:35:11,560
Speaker 1: you switch it up. Um, which side do you play on? Um?

609
00:35:11,800 --> 00:35:15,200
Speaker 1: You can't hide the ball when you serve, because you know,

610
00:35:15,280 --> 00:35:18,399
Speaker 1: trying just trying to make the game as fair as possible. Um.

611
00:35:18,760 --> 00:35:23,160
Speaker 1: The dimensions of the table are kind of interesting if

612
00:35:23,200 --> 00:35:26,640
Speaker 1: you're looking at it in meters. Uh. And if you're

613
00:35:26,840 --> 00:35:29,440
Speaker 1: from the United States, it's a nine ft long table,

614
00:35:29,560 --> 00:35:31,680
Speaker 1: five ft wide, two and a half feet high. But

615
00:35:31,760 --> 00:35:34,120
Speaker 1: that's two point seven four meters one point five to

616
00:35:34,320 --> 00:35:41,600
Speaker 1: five wide, seventy high. Um. The net is six inches high. Uh,

617
00:35:42,360 --> 00:35:45,920
Speaker 1: but that's after they lowered it a bit. Have you

618
00:35:46,000 --> 00:35:51,359
Speaker 1: seen how they make balls? Uh? Yeah, like the little factory. Yeah,

619
00:35:51,440 --> 00:35:53,279
Speaker 1: you saw like video of it being made. I can

620
00:35:53,360 --> 00:35:55,960
Speaker 1: watch that stuff all day long. I know. Same here. Um.

621
00:35:56,280 --> 00:35:59,560
Speaker 1: If you if you look at ping pong balls before

622
00:35:59,600 --> 00:36:02,760
Speaker 1: their armed into balls, to actually start as little flat

623
00:36:03,160 --> 00:36:06,600
Speaker 1: plastic circles, and that that was that is one half

624
00:36:06,640 --> 00:36:08,719
Speaker 1: of a ping pong ball. And they take it and

625
00:36:08,800 --> 00:36:11,600
Speaker 1: they form it. They press like a like a ball

626
00:36:11,680 --> 00:36:15,959
Speaker 1: bearing ping pong ball size ball bearing in hot water

627
00:36:16,280 --> 00:36:18,560
Speaker 1: to mold it. And they take two of those two

628
00:36:18,600 --> 00:36:20,960
Speaker 1: halves and put them together and seal them. And then

629
00:36:21,000 --> 00:36:23,919
Speaker 1: they trim off the fat and there's your ping pong ball.

630
00:36:24,320 --> 00:36:26,360
Speaker 1: But that's not the end of the life of the

631
00:36:26,520 --> 00:36:30,560
Speaker 1: ping pong ball manufacturing process because the the companies that

632
00:36:31,120 --> 00:36:33,759
Speaker 1: make ping pong ball specifically, there's one that's like a

633
00:36:33,840 --> 00:36:38,240
Speaker 1: globally dominant, dominating ping pong equipment company called Double Happiness,

634
00:36:38,320 --> 00:36:41,319
Speaker 1: which we'll talk about later. But they do so much

635
00:36:41,400 --> 00:36:46,680
Speaker 1: quality control it's astounding. Before they settle a ping pong ball. Oh,

636
00:36:46,719 --> 00:36:51,000
Speaker 1: I'm sure, Like there's there's a to measure bounce. There's

637
00:36:51,040 --> 00:36:53,360
Speaker 1: like a specific amount of bounce that the I T.

638
00:36:53,560 --> 00:36:56,880
Speaker 1: T A requires for a ping pong ball, and so

639
00:36:57,040 --> 00:37:00,759
Speaker 1: a company will will measure it by dropping it a

640
00:37:00,920 --> 00:37:03,839
Speaker 1: set height I think like three millimeters and it has

641
00:37:03,880 --> 00:37:06,520
Speaker 1: to bounce back up like two forty two sixty and

642
00:37:06,600 --> 00:37:09,239
Speaker 1: they measure it with the digital camera. It has to

643
00:37:09,320 --> 00:37:11,560
Speaker 1: have a specific hardness, so that use a robot with

644
00:37:11,640 --> 00:37:14,040
Speaker 1: a needle to test the pressure it takes to puncture

645
00:37:14,040 --> 00:37:17,719
Speaker 1: it with a needle. Um It's like Casper mattresses, but

646
00:37:17,760 --> 00:37:22,320
Speaker 1: they drop a human exactly, they drop, they roll it

647
00:37:22,360 --> 00:37:24,279
Speaker 1: down and incline to see where it veers. I mean,

648
00:37:24,360 --> 00:37:26,359
Speaker 1: like there's a lot going on there just to make

649
00:37:26,440 --> 00:37:29,160
Speaker 1: a ping pong ball that's that's usable in a game.

650
00:37:30,400 --> 00:37:32,200
Speaker 1: I think that. I mean, I just think it's top

651
00:37:32,280 --> 00:37:34,520
Speaker 1: notch that they take it that seriously, you know, I

652
00:37:34,560 --> 00:37:41,920
Speaker 1: mean any competition, uh, sporting ball undergoes incredible testing, right,

653
00:37:42,120 --> 00:37:44,279
Speaker 1: Like they just don't throw out an NFL football or

654
00:37:44,280 --> 00:37:47,680
Speaker 1: a basketball either or a tennis ball. What it's pretty amazing,

655
00:37:48,040 --> 00:37:51,200
Speaker 1: Yeah it is. But ping pong, ping pong balls, That's

656
00:37:51,239 --> 00:37:54,919
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about here. I think you, I think

657
00:37:54,960 --> 00:37:56,759
Speaker 1: you secretly are kind of making fun of ping pong.

658
00:37:57,120 --> 00:38:00,840
Speaker 1: I don't mean to be. I'm just my pong. My

659
00:38:00,920 --> 00:38:03,360
Speaker 1: idea of ping pong has changed as a result of

660
00:38:04,160 --> 00:38:07,560
Speaker 1: UM researching this. How about that? So the paddles themselves,

661
00:38:07,680 --> 00:38:09,640
Speaker 1: they are laminated wood. When you look at him, you

662
00:38:09,680 --> 00:38:12,879
Speaker 1: can tell it's sort of pressed together of different woods. Um,

663
00:38:13,080 --> 00:38:16,560
Speaker 1: some of them are fire fiberglass. There are carbon fiber paddles,

664
00:38:16,880 --> 00:38:19,000
Speaker 1: which I would love to give that a whirl. Yeah,

665
00:38:19,080 --> 00:38:21,640
Speaker 1: but I saw that of the thickness has to be

666
00:38:21,760 --> 00:38:23,840
Speaker 1: would does that mean there's like carbon fiber in the

667
00:38:23,920 --> 00:38:26,160
Speaker 1: middle of it, maybe just to make it like slightly lighter,

668
00:38:26,239 --> 00:38:31,880
Speaker 1: would be my guests. Um, there are all kinds of materials,

669
00:38:32,440 --> 00:38:35,040
Speaker 1: like from just the regular you can still get like

670
00:38:35,120 --> 00:38:39,239
Speaker 1: the sand paper paddles very low fi. But those that

671
00:38:39,440 --> 00:38:44,160
Speaker 1: padded rubber on one side, uh, and the textured little

672
00:38:44,239 --> 00:38:47,200
Speaker 1: rubber dimples on the other side, which have to be

673
00:38:47,280 --> 00:38:49,960
Speaker 1: two different colors, by the way, because the other players

674
00:38:50,000 --> 00:38:52,040
Speaker 1: supposedly needs to know which side you're hitting it with

675
00:38:52,760 --> 00:38:55,759
Speaker 1: so they know what's coming or you know, to a

676
00:38:55,840 --> 00:38:58,680
Speaker 1: varying degree what might be coming. Right, But that's sort

677
00:38:58,680 --> 00:39:00,920
Speaker 1: of like the classic paddle that most people have settled

678
00:39:00,920 --> 00:39:04,560
Speaker 1: on right now. Yeah, and the the smooth, padded side

679
00:39:04,600 --> 00:39:10,320
Speaker 1: would be for chiseling, and the um the dimpled side

680
00:39:10,760 --> 00:39:15,240
Speaker 1: would be for attacking and for probably the most important

681
00:39:15,800 --> 00:39:20,399
Speaker 1: part of ping pong spin to add spin to the ball. Yeah,

682
00:39:20,920 --> 00:39:23,440
Speaker 1: I'm a pretty good spinner. Oh you are, huh, Like,

683
00:39:23,560 --> 00:39:25,480
Speaker 1: not just one kind of spin? Can you do multiple

684
00:39:25,560 --> 00:39:28,520
Speaker 1: kinds of spin? Yeah? I've got a good batcan spinner

685
00:39:28,560 --> 00:39:31,759
Speaker 1: shot that's very fast and then sort of a flick

686
00:39:31,800 --> 00:39:34,760
Speaker 1: of the wrist that it just shoots off the paddle

687
00:39:34,840 --> 00:39:36,640
Speaker 1: and then has a nice little top spin to it.

688
00:39:37,480 --> 00:39:40,040
Speaker 1: And I try to angle that to like that farthest

689
00:39:40,080 --> 00:39:42,880
Speaker 1: corner than I can. That's really impressive, Chuck, Well, I

690
00:39:42,920 --> 00:39:46,120
Speaker 1: didn't say it was great. At it, But that's the aim.

691
00:39:46,400 --> 00:39:49,000
Speaker 1: This is what's going on in your head at least, right, Yeah,

692
00:39:49,040 --> 00:39:51,719
Speaker 1: but I'm not like a great uh, I mean, what

693
00:39:51,719 --> 00:39:54,560
Speaker 1: do you can call it a smash or a slam

694
00:39:55,560 --> 00:39:59,799
Speaker 1: an attacker? Well, just the big you know, Oh that's

695
00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:02,120
Speaker 1: ash mouth. Yeah, the smash mouth. I'm not a good

696
00:40:02,120 --> 00:40:04,319
Speaker 1: smash mouth or I'm not great. I mean and get

697
00:40:04,400 --> 00:40:05,960
Speaker 1: lucky every once in a while, but I still try

698
00:40:06,000 --> 00:40:09,400
Speaker 1: because it's such a boss move. It really is pretty cool. Um.

699
00:40:09,520 --> 00:40:12,920
Speaker 1: But that's sort of the variation of the loop stroke,

700
00:40:13,640 --> 00:40:16,880
Speaker 1: which is what you see on TV when someone just

701
00:40:17,680 --> 00:40:20,800
Speaker 1: throws a big hay maker. Uh. It's all in the

702
00:40:20,920 --> 00:40:23,960
Speaker 1: hips and the legs, tons of top spin, and that's

703
00:40:23,960 --> 00:40:26,440
Speaker 1: sort of like that main shot for what would be

704
00:40:26,480 --> 00:40:28,440
Speaker 1: a big smash to me is sort of the regular

705
00:40:29,200 --> 00:40:32,279
Speaker 1: shot that people volley back and forth on in competition, right.

706
00:40:32,840 --> 00:40:35,400
Speaker 1: And when you when you're doing the loop, it's like

707
00:40:35,560 --> 00:40:38,640
Speaker 1: from what I saw, it's an upward chopping motion where

708
00:40:38,680 --> 00:40:41,480
Speaker 1: you're just basically bringing the paddle up really quick as

709
00:40:41,560 --> 00:40:43,640
Speaker 1: it comes in contact with the ball, which, like you said,

710
00:40:43,640 --> 00:40:47,319
Speaker 1: because it tons of top spin. And there's this thing

711
00:40:47,360 --> 00:40:50,160
Speaker 1: called the Magnus effect with fluid dynamics. Whereas this ping

712
00:40:50,280 --> 00:40:54,000
Speaker 1: pong is moving through the air, the bottom or the

713
00:40:54,120 --> 00:40:57,360
Speaker 1: side of it that's spinning into the air is generating

714
00:40:57,440 --> 00:41:00,359
Speaker 1: more resistant so there's higher air pressure there then there

715
00:41:00,440 --> 00:41:04,319
Speaker 1: is on top and I'm sorry, on the bottom, which

716
00:41:04,400 --> 00:41:07,239
Speaker 1: makes the ball fall because there's less air pressure there.

717
00:41:07,520 --> 00:41:09,719
Speaker 1: So when you put spin on the ball, depending on

718
00:41:09,840 --> 00:41:12,560
Speaker 1: which direction it's going, you can make it go left, right, up, down,

719
00:41:12,960 --> 00:41:16,000
Speaker 1: and depending on the type of um the type of

720
00:41:16,320 --> 00:41:18,920
Speaker 1: what's it call when you hit the ball, not the grip,

721
00:41:19,000 --> 00:41:24,720
Speaker 1: the depending on this, I guess it's the stroke. Depending

722
00:41:24,760 --> 00:41:27,479
Speaker 1: on the stroke you use, you can apply different spin

723
00:41:27,640 --> 00:41:30,560
Speaker 1: to the ball. But that's the big reason why, like

724
00:41:30,760 --> 00:41:33,320
Speaker 1: one side of a ping pong paddle is dimpled so

725
00:41:33,440 --> 00:41:36,000
Speaker 1: that you can make contact with the ball and really

726
00:41:36,360 --> 00:41:39,720
Speaker 1: kind of grip it while you're giving it that spin. Yeah,

727
00:41:42,560 --> 00:41:46,520
Speaker 1: so they're all kinds of grips. Um. The shake hand

728
00:41:46,600 --> 00:41:49,000
Speaker 1: grip is sort of if you don't play a lot

729
00:41:49,040 --> 00:41:52,239
Speaker 1: of ping pong, it's probably just the standard little grip

730
00:41:52,320 --> 00:41:56,360
Speaker 1: that you would want to use. The pinhole grip is

731
00:41:57,000 --> 00:42:01,520
Speaker 1: what you see. My brother and Asian players use that

732
00:42:01,640 --> 00:42:04,279
Speaker 1: Scott's move, the one with the thumb on the back

733
00:42:04,600 --> 00:42:07,680
Speaker 1: side of it. Yeah, it's uh, basically, your thumb and

734
00:42:07,760 --> 00:42:10,600
Speaker 1: forefinger kind of wrap around the handle and almost touch

735
00:42:10,640 --> 00:42:13,520
Speaker 1: each other, and then your other three fingers are resting

736
00:42:14,120 --> 00:42:16,560
Speaker 1: on the back of the paddle itself, and it sort

737
00:42:16,600 --> 00:42:18,719
Speaker 1: of sort of looks like you're holding the paddle upside down,

738
00:42:19,080 --> 00:42:22,080
Speaker 1: well because you kind of are. Yes, but that's my

739
00:42:22,160 --> 00:42:26,279
Speaker 1: brother is a total uh pin holder. Got you? What

740
00:42:26,400 --> 00:42:28,080
Speaker 1: about the c Miller grip? Do you ever do that?

741
00:42:28,920 --> 00:42:32,560
Speaker 1: That's Danny c Miller. That's I didn't really quite get then.

742
00:42:32,640 --> 00:42:35,680
Speaker 1: That's like the shake hand. But what I saw was

743
00:42:35,760 --> 00:42:39,200
Speaker 1: like the thumb and forefinger are kind of resting on

744
00:42:39,280 --> 00:42:42,920
Speaker 1: the face of the paddle. Sometimes the finger forefinger is

745
00:42:42,920 --> 00:42:44,840
Speaker 1: wrapped around sort of on the side of the paddle.

746
00:42:45,120 --> 00:42:47,040
Speaker 1: What I saw was that, so you've got your three

747
00:42:47,200 --> 00:42:50,960
Speaker 1: your pinky finger, your ring finger, and your index finger

748
00:42:51,560 --> 00:42:54,319
Speaker 1: that's on the paddle. Your middle finger are all rap Yeah,

749
00:42:54,360 --> 00:42:57,680
Speaker 1: that's on the handle. Your forefinger and your thumb are

750
00:42:57,880 --> 00:43:01,320
Speaker 1: like control. They're like up against the edges of the paddle,

751
00:43:02,120 --> 00:43:04,600
Speaker 1: and it makes it easier to spin the paddle and

752
00:43:04,760 --> 00:43:07,640
Speaker 1: control it. That's what I saw as the c Miller grip. Yeah,

753
00:43:07,680 --> 00:43:10,000
Speaker 1: Well it's easier to flip the paddle to use both

754
00:43:10,040 --> 00:43:12,440
Speaker 1: sides of it right exactly. So you want to chisel

755
00:43:12,520 --> 00:43:14,480
Speaker 1: here and then maybe a little attack there, put some

756
00:43:14,600 --> 00:43:16,920
Speaker 1: spin on, and then just push it back. You just

757
00:43:17,040 --> 00:43:20,080
Speaker 1: flip it back and forth. Thanks to Danny C. Miller. Yeah,

758
00:43:20,080 --> 00:43:23,839
Speaker 1: and I love the next part of this article, which is, like, um,

759
00:43:23,960 --> 00:43:25,520
Speaker 1: if you want to know all the rules of ping pong,

760
00:43:25,600 --> 00:43:28,680
Speaker 1: go look them up, right, because it will be kind

761
00:43:28,680 --> 00:43:31,000
Speaker 1: of boring just to read all those out. But there

762
00:43:31,040 --> 00:43:33,920
Speaker 1: are um, I mean, if you're playing in someone's house,

763
00:43:33,960 --> 00:43:37,120
Speaker 1: you play house rules, just ask what they are. Be

764
00:43:37,200 --> 00:43:38,680
Speaker 1: a good guest, to be a good guests and say

765
00:43:38,719 --> 00:43:42,000
Speaker 1: what are the house rules? Because people play differently. Um,

766
00:43:43,360 --> 00:43:45,840
Speaker 1: some more not obscure rules but sort of sort of

767
00:43:45,960 --> 00:43:50,279
Speaker 1: nitpicky rules that casual players might not know. Um And

768
00:43:50,400 --> 00:43:52,440
Speaker 1: depending on on where you play the house rules, it

769
00:43:52,520 --> 00:43:55,520
Speaker 1: may take effect or not. You're supposed to toss the

770
00:43:55,600 --> 00:44:01,640
Speaker 1: ball at least sixteen centimeters into the air before you serve, right, Um,

771
00:44:02,160 --> 00:44:04,960
Speaker 1: My house rule is you just have to have some

772
00:44:05,120 --> 00:44:10,279
Speaker 1: air between the like you can't just hold it in

773
00:44:10,360 --> 00:44:13,200
Speaker 1: your hand and hit it off your hand. Like, we

774
00:44:13,239 --> 00:44:15,640
Speaker 1: don't say it has to be sixteen centimeters, but there

775
00:44:15,680 --> 00:44:17,520
Speaker 1: has to be a little bit of air between your hand.

776
00:44:18,160 --> 00:44:20,480
Speaker 1: The ball has to be suspended before you serve it.

777
00:44:20,800 --> 00:44:23,080
Speaker 1: So what happens if someone violates your house rules? Are

778
00:44:23,120 --> 00:44:25,879
Speaker 1: they like tired, tired and feathered? Now you say, dude,

779
00:44:25,920 --> 00:44:30,560
Speaker 1: what are you doing? Not cool? Here's a smash mouth

780
00:44:30,640 --> 00:44:33,200
Speaker 1: for you. Uh. And you have to serve behind the

781
00:44:33,320 --> 00:44:36,680
Speaker 1: in line. Um, that's a pretty standard even and for

782
00:44:36,840 --> 00:44:40,000
Speaker 1: house rules, like you're leaning over the table. Oh, I

783
00:44:40,040 --> 00:44:42,040
Speaker 1: see what you mean you can't lean forward a couple

784
00:44:42,080 --> 00:44:44,640
Speaker 1: of feet because I was going to say, I thought

785
00:44:44,640 --> 00:44:46,320
Speaker 1: you were saying, like you have to get it inside

786
00:44:46,400 --> 00:44:48,040
Speaker 1: a square? Do you get it to the other square?

787
00:44:48,040 --> 00:44:50,759
Speaker 1: And I saw that that's that only applies in doubles. Yeah,

788
00:44:50,840 --> 00:44:54,759
Speaker 1: you can serve it to either side when you're playing singles. Right,

789
00:44:55,120 --> 00:44:58,560
Speaker 1: and then if you if it touches your hand that

790
00:44:58,640 --> 00:45:01,120
Speaker 1: you're holding the paddle with. Apparently according to the I

791
00:45:01,320 --> 00:45:03,880
Speaker 1: T T F, your hand is part of the paddle

792
00:45:03,920 --> 00:45:05,840
Speaker 1: as far as they're concerned. So if it if it

793
00:45:05,880 --> 00:45:09,839
Speaker 1: bounces off of your hand, that's there's nothing wrong with that. Yeah.

794
00:45:09,840 --> 00:45:11,440
Speaker 1: I always get the thumb hit though, and it it

795
00:45:11,520 --> 00:45:13,840
Speaker 1: always sends it off in a bad direction and I

796
00:45:13,840 --> 00:45:16,440
Speaker 1: always go, ah, I'm hit. You need to do more

797
00:45:16,520 --> 00:45:23,520
Speaker 1: c Miller more see Miller less thumbsies. The pimples, believe

798
00:45:23,560 --> 00:45:26,320
Speaker 1: it or not, those are regulated, Um, they cannot be

799
00:45:26,640 --> 00:45:31,840
Speaker 1: larger than two millimeters, But astoundingly, the size of the

800
00:45:31,920 --> 00:45:34,440
Speaker 1: paddle is not at all regulated. You could show up

801
00:45:34,520 --> 00:45:37,000
Speaker 1: with them a pickle ball paddle if you wanted to,

802
00:45:37,680 --> 00:45:41,000
Speaker 1: and they'd be like, yep, it works. Um. But the

803
00:45:41,560 --> 00:45:45,800
Speaker 1: foam padding on either side. If you're a competitive table

804
00:45:45,880 --> 00:45:49,200
Speaker 1: tennis player, you glue your own foam on and you

805
00:45:49,239 --> 00:45:51,520
Speaker 1: can cheat it too, right. Yeah, For a lot of

806
00:45:51,800 --> 00:45:54,120
Speaker 1: until the Beijing Olympics, you could from I think the

807
00:45:54,520 --> 00:45:58,720
Speaker 1: sixties until the Beijing Olympics, they would use a specific

808
00:45:58,800 --> 00:46:03,000
Speaker 1: kind of glue that UM would would it would expand

809
00:46:03,640 --> 00:46:07,520
Speaker 1: but at the same time soften the foam underneath the

810
00:46:07,760 --> 00:46:11,480
Speaker 1: exterior um of the phone padding. So you've got like

811
00:46:11,600 --> 00:46:14,520
Speaker 1: the the layer that like the rubbery layer, and then

812
00:46:14,600 --> 00:46:17,919
Speaker 1: underneath that is foam like a spongey material. It would

813
00:46:17,960 --> 00:46:20,400
Speaker 1: get into the pores of that spongey material and it

814
00:46:20,440 --> 00:46:24,279
Speaker 1: would make that ball bounce even faster, and UM would

815
00:46:24,360 --> 00:46:27,520
Speaker 1: just give it an enormous amount of speed. But just

816
00:46:27,640 --> 00:46:29,560
Speaker 1: for a short amount of time though, right, right, So

817
00:46:29,680 --> 00:46:32,000
Speaker 1: if you were in a tournament, you were pulling off

818
00:46:32,080 --> 00:46:36,400
Speaker 1: and then regluing your um your phone pads on multiple

819
00:46:36,480 --> 00:46:39,440
Speaker 1: times over the course of that weekend, because you get

820
00:46:39,480 --> 00:46:44,120
Speaker 1: about three or four hours of good um um, I

821
00:46:44,200 --> 00:46:47,759
Speaker 1: don't know, ricochet return off of those things, um, and

822
00:46:47,880 --> 00:46:49,719
Speaker 1: then they would dry up and and it wouldn't be

823
00:46:49,840 --> 00:46:52,440
Speaker 1: quite as as useful cheaters. I love the article you

824
00:46:52,480 --> 00:46:55,560
Speaker 1: sent and where they were basically like everyone was doing it. Everybody.

825
00:46:55,760 --> 00:46:58,960
Speaker 1: They called it doping. Table ten is doping. But the

826
00:46:59,040 --> 00:47:01,880
Speaker 1: problem is that it had a lot of volatile organic compounds.

827
00:47:01,960 --> 00:47:05,040
Speaker 1: So the International Table Tennis Foundation said, no, we don't

828
00:47:05,040 --> 00:47:07,440
Speaker 1: want people getting cancer, so we gotta ban it, and

829
00:47:07,520 --> 00:47:10,120
Speaker 1: they actually test paddles now in a little machine that

830
00:47:10,200 --> 00:47:14,759
Speaker 1: tests for volatile organic compounds. Ye, get those rats out

831
00:47:14,800 --> 00:47:17,839
Speaker 1: of the game. Get about uh, you gotta win by two,

832
00:47:17,920 --> 00:47:20,120
Speaker 1: like we said, generally played at twenty one at home

833
00:47:20,160 --> 00:47:23,279
Speaker 1: eleven in competition, I think we said. And then um,

834
00:47:23,560 --> 00:47:26,640
Speaker 1: obviously you just anything as a point. If you get

835
00:47:26,680 --> 00:47:28,279
Speaker 1: the point. It's not like volleyball. You don't have to

836
00:47:28,320 --> 00:47:31,200
Speaker 1: be serving to get the point, right, which I love

837
00:47:31,320 --> 00:47:33,640
Speaker 1: that too. It makes the game go a lot faster. Yeah,

838
00:47:33,719 --> 00:47:38,160
Speaker 1: and just my whole problem is keeping up with that score. Yeah,

839
00:47:38,360 --> 00:47:41,120
Speaker 1: that's why you want a sober person. They're taking keeping

840
00:47:41,160 --> 00:47:44,880
Speaker 1: score for you. Uh. And I guess we should finish

841
00:47:44,960 --> 00:47:47,560
Speaker 1: with this well a couple of things. But um, you've

842
00:47:47,600 --> 00:47:50,520
Speaker 1: heard the term ping pong diplomacy. Yeah, there's a big

843
00:47:50,600 --> 00:47:54,200
Speaker 1: story there. Yeah, that came from a real thing that happened. Um. Obviously,

844
00:47:54,360 --> 00:47:58,799
Speaker 1: China live um in isolation for decades and decades from

845
00:47:58,840 --> 00:48:01,719
Speaker 1: the rest of the world. And then during the Cold War,

846
00:48:01,800 --> 00:48:03,640
Speaker 1: of course we were on the US was on the

847
00:48:03,640 --> 00:48:06,759
Speaker 1: opposite side of China. Not a lot of travel going

848
00:48:06,840 --> 00:48:11,200
Speaker 1: back and forth or allowed between the countries until the

849
00:48:11,280 --> 00:48:16,080
Speaker 1: International Competition of nine where the Chinese table tennis team

850
00:48:16,160 --> 00:48:20,759
Speaker 1: went to the championships in Japan. Uh met some Americans,

851
00:48:20,800 --> 00:48:25,040
Speaker 1: and in particular one American named Glenn Cowen, and he

852
00:48:25,200 --> 00:48:27,839
Speaker 1: was like, hey, man, like, we're all the same, really,

853
00:48:28,280 --> 00:48:32,480
Speaker 1: we all love table tennis regardless of our grip. Let's

854
00:48:32,520 --> 00:48:35,440
Speaker 1: shake hands. And he rode the bus with him on

855
00:48:35,480 --> 00:48:37,920
Speaker 1: the way back to the hotel. So so let me

856
00:48:38,120 --> 00:48:40,680
Speaker 1: let me just interject here. He got on the bus accidentally,

857
00:48:40,800 --> 00:48:43,240
Speaker 1: he had missed his own bus and these were busses

858
00:48:43,320 --> 00:48:46,120
Speaker 1: that were taking the teams to the hotel, and there

859
00:48:46,239 --> 00:48:49,160
Speaker 1: was like the first ten minutes of this fifteen minute

860
00:48:49,200 --> 00:48:53,800
Speaker 1: bus ride were silent in tents because these two enemy

861
00:48:53,920 --> 00:48:56,959
Speaker 1: groups were on the same bus and no one knew

862
00:48:56,960 --> 00:49:00,919
Speaker 1: what to do until Juang Zedong stood up and said,

863
00:49:00,920 --> 00:49:02,800
Speaker 1: I'm going to go talk to this guy. Yeah. But

864
00:49:02,840 --> 00:49:04,759
Speaker 1: they got along great. Like I said, they had more

865
00:49:04,760 --> 00:49:08,719
Speaker 1: in common than they thought. And table tennis or ping

866
00:49:08,800 --> 00:49:12,080
Speaker 1: pong is literally what brought them together, and it was

867
00:49:12,160 --> 00:49:15,760
Speaker 1: seen as a sort of an emblematic thing. Uh. Flash

868
00:49:15,960 --> 00:49:19,600
Speaker 1: forward a bit to the press covering this, it becomes

869
00:49:19,640 --> 00:49:23,040
Speaker 1: a big deal. The US table tennis UH competition team

870
00:49:23,120 --> 00:49:26,480
Speaker 1: said we want to go to China, uh and like

871
00:49:26,719 --> 00:49:29,239
Speaker 1: because they're the best of the best over there, and

872
00:49:29,520 --> 00:49:32,279
Speaker 1: mal Z Dong said, sure, come on over. They did

873
00:49:32,360 --> 00:49:35,520
Speaker 1: so in April one. They spent a week there. It

874
00:49:35,680 --> 00:49:38,400
Speaker 1: was big in the news and it literally kind of

875
00:49:38,480 --> 00:49:44,480
Speaker 1: thawed relations between the US and China. I mean it

876
00:49:44,600 --> 00:49:46,920
Speaker 1: paved the way for a trip by Richard Dixon. Like

877
00:49:47,040 --> 00:49:49,880
Speaker 1: the the U S table tennis team went over there

878
00:49:49,960 --> 00:49:53,360
Speaker 1: before Nixon did UM and just shared love of table

879
00:49:53,440 --> 00:49:57,160
Speaker 1: tennis and this this um, this kind of international exposure

880
00:49:57,160 --> 00:50:00,640
Speaker 1: of these two enemy countries, like getting along. Whatever it

881
00:50:00,719 --> 00:50:04,800
Speaker 1: takes to build common ground and consensus. If it's table tennis, awesome,

882
00:50:04,920 --> 00:50:08,520
Speaker 1: so much the better. So um that it led to

883
00:50:09,120 --> 00:50:13,000
Speaker 1: um to normalized relations between the two countries very quickly,

884
00:50:13,160 --> 00:50:16,640
Speaker 1: like within a year after after the or the beginnings

885
00:50:16,680 --> 00:50:20,080
Speaker 1: of normalized relations within a year after the thing. Where

886
00:50:20,360 --> 00:50:24,440
Speaker 1: all because Xiang Zadong came over and said, hey, man,

887
00:50:25,280 --> 00:50:28,600
Speaker 1: I just want to say thank you for playing table

888
00:50:28,680 --> 00:50:31,440
Speaker 1: tennis and gave him a scarf, and Glen Cowen had

889
00:50:31,480 --> 00:50:33,600
Speaker 1: a comb on him, and He's like, this isn't a

890
00:50:33,640 --> 00:50:37,800
Speaker 1: good enough reciprocal gift. So he he later gave Ziang

891
00:50:38,280 --> 00:50:41,279
Speaker 1: ze Dong a m a T shirt with a peace

892
00:50:41,320 --> 00:50:43,760
Speaker 1: symbol on it, which is pretty cool. Man Richard Dixon,

893
00:50:43,880 --> 00:50:47,520
Speaker 1: well known lover of session in cuisine and marijuana, Yes,

894
00:50:47,640 --> 00:50:50,480
Speaker 1: and peace symbol t shirts. He was a reared one

895
00:50:50,520 --> 00:50:55,279
Speaker 1: of those in public. Uh. We should also talk a

896
00:50:55,320 --> 00:51:01,160
Speaker 1: little bit about ping pong robots. Um. They built a

897
00:51:02,000 --> 00:51:06,200
Speaker 1: table tennis robot. Um. It was okay, Um, you could

898
00:51:06,360 --> 00:51:11,759
Speaker 1: program it to to imitate different styles, um, but it

899
00:51:11,960 --> 00:51:14,080
Speaker 1: wasn't like when when you played again, when it played

900
00:51:14,120 --> 00:51:18,279
Speaker 1: against the human being um. It was what what what?

901
00:51:18,400 --> 00:51:20,359
Speaker 1: What would happen there? It was just shooting them all

902
00:51:20,400 --> 00:51:23,920
Speaker 1: to the same place at the same exactly where it's

903
00:51:23,960 --> 00:51:26,360
Speaker 1: going to go. Yeah, there wasn't a lot of training

904
00:51:26,400 --> 00:51:28,440
Speaker 1: from it. But then they started inventing robots. I could

905
00:51:28,480 --> 00:51:31,040
Speaker 1: like add spin to it and pick its own moves

906
00:51:31,560 --> 00:51:33,600
Speaker 1: And that was in like the early nineties when they

907
00:51:33,640 --> 00:51:35,640
Speaker 1: first came out with those and the ones they have today.

908
00:51:36,239 --> 00:51:38,879
Speaker 1: One came out in six two thousand and sixteen called

909
00:51:39,320 --> 00:51:41,920
Speaker 1: uh four FEUs f O r p h e U.

910
00:51:43,360 --> 00:51:45,359
Speaker 1: Yeah it is and it can play some mean ping

911
00:51:45,520 --> 00:51:49,279
Speaker 1: pong um, but it's a it like actually plays you.

912
00:51:49,400 --> 00:51:51,959
Speaker 1: It's a an ai that plays you in ping pong.

913
00:51:52,280 --> 00:51:56,000
Speaker 1: But it's like a giant mechanical spidery kind of looking thing. Yeah,

914
00:51:56,040 --> 00:51:58,920
Speaker 1: it's really creepy looking. It looks like a Yeah, it

915
00:51:58,920 --> 00:52:01,919
Speaker 1: looks like a big spider sitting high above the table

916
00:52:01,960 --> 00:52:04,960
Speaker 1: across from you. And Uh, I saw the video the

917
00:52:04,960 --> 00:52:06,880
Speaker 1: guy playing it at ces and he he was I

918
00:52:06,920 --> 00:52:10,600
Speaker 1: felt bad for the guy because you cannot beat the thing. Well.

919
00:52:10,680 --> 00:52:12,880
Speaker 1: Plus he also goes, we'll pus some kind of nervous

920
00:52:12,880 --> 00:52:15,160
Speaker 1: because all these people are watching. Well in the ass

921
00:52:15,200 --> 00:52:17,359
Speaker 1: at one point, He's like, is there literally, like nothing

922
00:52:17,400 --> 00:52:20,040
Speaker 1: I can do that this thing won't returning. They're like nope. Yeah.

923
00:52:20,160 --> 00:52:22,560
Speaker 1: So then he was like, well, why I'm even here? Well, yeah,

924
00:52:22,600 --> 00:52:26,120
Speaker 1: it's an ai. It's it's it's um tracking the ball's

925
00:52:26,200 --> 00:52:29,360
Speaker 1: velocity and trajectory and like making calculations about how to

926
00:52:29,440 --> 00:52:33,319
Speaker 1: best return it. It's you're not gonna win against it, Nope,

927
00:52:33,400 --> 00:52:35,520
Speaker 1: but you can train really well to beat other human

928
00:52:35,640 --> 00:52:39,400
Speaker 1: socks off with it. That's right. So I don't have

929
00:52:39,480 --> 00:52:42,560
Speaker 1: anything else, do you. I'm looking at my fun facts

930
00:52:42,640 --> 00:52:46,560
Speaker 1: I got in three of the four. The last one

931
00:52:46,640 --> 00:52:54,040
Speaker 1: here is the world record was set between two players who, um,

932
00:52:54,120 --> 00:52:57,239
Speaker 1: if you're doing like speed ping pong, they hit it

933
00:52:57,280 --> 00:53:00,239
Speaker 1: back and forth one d and seventy three times in

934
00:53:00,360 --> 00:53:05,319
Speaker 1: sixty seconds. Oh my god. That is some serious speed play.

935
00:53:05,880 --> 00:53:08,160
Speaker 1: That is. That's an amazing fact. But it's got nothing

936
00:53:08,239 --> 00:53:11,719
Speaker 1: on the two hour and twelve minute point. Fake news.

937
00:53:13,560 --> 00:53:15,640
Speaker 1: All right, Now, you got anything else? I got nothing else?

938
00:53:15,800 --> 00:53:17,279
Speaker 1: All right? Well, if you want to know more about

939
00:53:17,320 --> 00:53:19,880
Speaker 1: ping pong, go start playing. It's the greatest thing you

940
00:53:19,960 --> 00:53:22,120
Speaker 1: can ever try to do with your life. And since

941
00:53:22,200 --> 00:53:26,840
Speaker 1: I said that, it's time for listener and mail we

942
00:53:26,880 --> 00:53:29,120
Speaker 1: should have a totally have a ping pong table here

943
00:53:29,120 --> 00:53:32,040
Speaker 1: at work. I agree. I don't think we have room

944
00:53:32,080 --> 00:53:34,040
Speaker 1: for it anymore, but at one point we probably did.

945
00:53:34,440 --> 00:53:36,520
Speaker 1: I know now where it's all this like production space,

946
00:53:36,560 --> 00:53:41,040
Speaker 1: production space, and we're like, where's ping pong? I'm gonna

947
00:53:41,200 --> 00:53:44,600
Speaker 1: call this. Uh, well, we've been getting a lot of

948
00:53:44,640 --> 00:53:47,680
Speaker 1: heat lately for two errors, one of which was sort

949
00:53:47,680 --> 00:53:49,799
Speaker 1: of a joke by me which I'm gonna read now.

950
00:53:49,920 --> 00:53:53,560
Speaker 1: But we should also say about figs and dates and

951
00:53:54,239 --> 00:53:57,839
Speaker 1: same things are all the same thing. It's like it's

952
00:53:57,880 --> 00:54:01,279
Speaker 1: like pork ham and bacon. Now we we heard from

953
00:54:01,280 --> 00:54:05,520
Speaker 1: a lot of people about that and we understand now, yeah,

954
00:54:05,600 --> 00:54:07,759
Speaker 1: we I mean, I got it flat out wrong. So

955
00:54:08,040 --> 00:54:11,560
Speaker 1: sorry about that everyone. Uh, you can stop telling us

956
00:54:11,640 --> 00:54:15,520
Speaker 1: now right. This is about average life expectancy, which I

957
00:54:16,880 --> 00:54:18,560
Speaker 1: was kind of just kidding about. I can't It was

958
00:54:18,680 --> 00:54:21,720
Speaker 1: I think Spanish Flu episode. I made a joke about

959
00:54:21,760 --> 00:54:24,719
Speaker 1: the life expectancy being like fifty or something, and I

960
00:54:24,800 --> 00:54:28,120
Speaker 1: was like, so I'd almost be dead. Um, so I'll

961
00:54:28,160 --> 00:54:31,319
Speaker 1: just read this, Hey, stuffers, I hope this doesn't come

962
00:54:31,360 --> 00:54:34,320
Speaker 1: across being snarky or trolley, but I think you should

963
00:54:34,320 --> 00:54:37,560
Speaker 1: try and clear up the difference between average actual life

964
00:54:37,600 --> 00:54:42,439
Speaker 1: expectancy and average life expectancy. UM chuck more than once.

965
00:54:43,080 --> 00:54:45,719
Speaker 1: So I guess I've said this before. You've made it

966
00:54:45,800 --> 00:54:47,960
Speaker 1: sound as if people in the past could only expect

967
00:54:48,000 --> 00:54:50,239
Speaker 1: to live into the thirties or forties. But that is

968
00:54:50,280 --> 00:54:52,640
Speaker 1: not the case. People live well into their sixties, seventies, eighties,

969
00:54:52,680 --> 00:54:56,200
Speaker 1: and nineties, just like today. UM. And he gives some

970
00:54:56,280 --> 00:55:00,080
Speaker 1: prominent examples of old people back in the day, and

971
00:55:00,160 --> 00:55:03,000
Speaker 1: then he says what drove the average life expectancy down

972
00:55:03,160 --> 00:55:06,120
Speaker 1: was the insanely high rate of infant and childhood mortality.

973
00:55:06,640 --> 00:55:09,120
Speaker 1: People had huge families back in the past just to

974
00:55:09,160 --> 00:55:11,120
Speaker 1: try and ensure this. Some of their children survived into

975
00:55:11,160 --> 00:55:14,040
Speaker 1: adulthood because so many died his infants and others never

976
00:55:14,120 --> 00:55:16,400
Speaker 1: made it past their second or third year due to

977
00:55:16,719 --> 00:55:21,000
Speaker 1: mom's measles, influenza, etcetera. Uh, the absolute horror of whooping cough.

978
00:55:21,120 --> 00:55:23,759
Speaker 1: Let's not forget polio and any number of plagues that

979
00:55:23,880 --> 00:55:27,640
Speaker 1: modern medicine has managed to render vastly less lethal, thanks

980
00:55:27,719 --> 00:55:30,680
Speaker 1: mostly to our friend of vaccines. So more and more

981
00:55:30,800 --> 00:55:34,960
Speaker 1: children are surviving the battlefield called childhood, growing into adults,

982
00:55:35,400 --> 00:55:38,520
Speaker 1: and the average life expectancy has become much longer. This

983
00:55:38,680 --> 00:55:41,200
Speaker 1: is a great email, Thank you Western Medicine. That's from

984
00:55:41,280 --> 00:55:44,480
Speaker 1: Joseph Catrell and Joseph, I was kind of just kidding

985
00:55:44,520 --> 00:55:49,080
Speaker 1: about that which time, well every time it was a

986
00:55:49,160 --> 00:55:52,960
Speaker 1: recurring joke. But um, that was very kind email and

987
00:55:53,040 --> 00:55:55,319
Speaker 1: it was fun and funny and you you did it right,

988
00:55:55,400 --> 00:55:58,320
Speaker 1: So thank you for sure. Plus also, you gave you

989
00:55:58,400 --> 00:56:00,680
Speaker 1: a chance to tell everybody that you know that that's

990
00:56:00,800 --> 00:56:03,920
Speaker 1: the case. Yeah, and it gave everybody. It gave me

991
00:56:04,000 --> 00:56:06,080
Speaker 1: a chance to let everybody know that I was totally

992
00:56:06,120 --> 00:56:09,759
Speaker 1: wrong about dates and figs. Um. Well, if you want

993
00:56:09,840 --> 00:56:12,640
Speaker 1: to correct us like Joseph did, that was an a

994
00:56:12,960 --> 00:56:17,239
Speaker 1: plus correction email. Joseph, you can get in touch with us.

995
00:56:17,320 --> 00:56:19,399
Speaker 1: You go to stuff you shao dot com and check

996
00:56:19,440 --> 00:56:21,799
Speaker 1: out our social links, or you can send us an

997
00:56:21,840 --> 00:56:24,640
Speaker 1: email to stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com

998
00:56:29,560 --> 00:56:32,000
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is

999
00:56:32,040 --> 00:56:33,239
Speaker 1: it how stuff works dot com